For the most
part man turns away his eyes from this sure fact. For the most part man prefers
not to think of it, not to allow it to intrude upon his moments of pleasure and
happiness. For the most part he tries to keep it out of sight, for he does not
want, his life to be shadowed by the shadow of death.

But now and
then there comes a time when he cannot turn his eyes from it, when death forces

itself on his
attention, when death thrusts himself into the home, and touches the nearest in
the family. Then man despite himself, thinks of death; then, despite himself,
he asks: "What is life worth, if life is not secure?"

Then there
arises in him some touch of that Vairăgya, as it is
called, that disgust with life, which turns aside from life's pleasures with
weariness of all that is changing; and desire arises in him for the changeless,
the eternal, for that which can never pass away, for that which can never
disappoint.

But this Vairăgya is of a very passive kind. It touches a man when
death has forced itself on him in this way. In course of time such Vairăgya disappears. It is not born out of the real hunger
of the soul, but out of temporary disgust, of

disappointment
with life. The true Vairăgya that lasts, and tends to
wisdom, is the hunger of the soul for the Self, the aspiration of the Jivătman for the

Paramătman; that hunger, once really felt, never again
passes away, for it has root in the man's deepest nature. He yearns to find
himself the Self of all.

The Vairăgya that comes in truth from outside — which is the
result of disappointment with worldly things rather than of the deep feeling in
man for

the supreme
Self — being born of disappointment, often disappears as disappointment loses
its horror. But still, even from that, when it is present,

great and
important lessons of life may be learned, ere the life regains its savour, and when the beauty of the world is overshadowed
for a moment by a

cloud. But when
the passing cloud is gone, it again regains its brightness, so that men should
take advantage of the time when the trouble touches them.

When friends
and relatives are snatched away by death from amongst them, they should take
advantage of that, and try to learn some lessons that may be useful.

Man asks
himself then: What is life, and what is death? Can we know anything about them
and of the other side of death? Of this we are fairly certain, that not all
dies when the body perishes.

We shall not
really perish when the body falls away; but what is there on the other side of
death? When the body is struck away by death's hands, what conditions shall we
pass into, in what worlds shall we find ourselves? What are the things on this
earth which we find in our condition there? Is there anyone in the world who
can tell us anything certain of the life on the other side of death? Is there
anyone in the world who can tell us, of his own experience, what is the
condition of those who leave the body?

What brings
them back again to the world? What governs their rebirth into the physical,
material world? What is the circle of Birth and Death? What the wheel, as it is
called — the wheel of births and deaths — to which we are tied, from which we
cannot escape, which turns round, round and round, carrying us all with it into
some other world, and so out of that again to reach other worlds?

There are
three worlds through which we turn. This wheel carries all Births and Deaths.
What is the force which has bound Birth and Death in varying succession?

Is it
possible to escape from that wheel of births and deaths? Can we break the
bonds, so that we shall not afterwards be born again. Is there not some
permanent state into which we may pass, where we may find satisfaction and
complete peace which shall never be troubled, and joy which shall never be
ended?

That is the
question ever repeated by the soul in man. It is that question which we are
trying in some way to answer in our thought tonight, and see whether the teaching
of the sages of the past will solve it. We reply to it by the knowledge of
those who have studied the great truths of today as the sages teach them. We
seek some certainty as to the conditions under which a man is continually born
and continually dies, and also as to the conditions by which a man can be free
from death and birth, and pass into the peace that knows no change, that knows
no ending.

Let us take
the first part of the question — the succession of birth and death.

That is the
question, we may say, of most pressing importance to most of us, because we are
not yet for the most part prepared to pass out of the circle of births and
deaths. Much must be done before we attain full freedom, and most of us have to
be born several times again before we can pass into the eternal liberty. But to
know the road which we shall ultimately take is something, to know what must be
done if we wish to escape from the bondage.

I just
mentioned the three worlds man passes through in going from birth to death and
death to birth. Let us take the first, the physical. As to this, we need not
dwell long on it. We are fairly familiar with its conditions, but there is one
fact it is well to notice, because it is this fact that drifts us into that
from which we are trying to escape. We are seeking for happiness. That, if you
come to look at it, is the one object of man's life. He is always trying to be
happy; nothing else will satisfy him, nothing else will content him. If he
grasps at a thing, and does not find happiness in it, he will say: "Well,
I have made a mistake — I have gone the wrong way, in looking for happiness.
Let me try

and find the
better road".

He always
comes back and back again to the idea that he must be happy. Nothing else will
give his mind any kind of satisfaction. This is natural; the craving of the
heart for happiness is God-given. Ishvara makes us
long for happiness, because it is by that longing we shall at last find rest in
Him. We try to find happiness in physical things; that is the universal
experience. The body makes so many claims upon us when it is not satisfied; the
body is greedy and grasping. It has a craving for food and for drink, for the
enjoyment of sexual pleasures, and so on. The body tries always to get hold of
something. The first place in which man tries to find happiness is the body.

That makes
the most forcible claim upon his attention. Now he does not understand the fact
that this craving will pass away, and disappear after a time. He gives way to
it. When he has a great craving for food he will yield to taking too much. He
is greedy, and takes too much. When he is eager for sexual pleasures, he will
take too much What is the result? Disgust, sickness, diseases of all kinds.
This is how Ishvara teaches him 'that man's happiness
does not lie in satisfying the greedy desires and expectations of the body. The
gratifying of the body results in making it more greedy. The more he drinks,
the more he craves for drink. The more he eats, the more he wants food. The
more of sexual pleasures he enjoys, the greater his passion becomes.

It is written
that it is easier to put out fire by pouring butter over it, than to extinguish
passion by gratifying it. Happiness never lies in that way, and Ishvara tells us: "Your happiness does not lie in the
body; if you seek it there, then you will be

continually
disappointed, and you will reach surfeit but not pleasure".

Then the man
tries to find that which shall give him longer happiness find steadier happiness
in intellectual delights. But sometimes, under the rush of trouble and sorrow,
the intellect loses its charm, and he is no longer able to give his mind to
study.

Or if he is
strong — strong enough to study in spite of trouble — there comes old age, when
the brain is dull and begins to fail, and he is no longer able to think
properly and clearly. Then the intellectual happiness finds an ending, although
far better than that of the body is the pleasure that he has found in the mind.

In all directions
man is thus beaten back. Naturally at last he seeks to find pleasure,
happiness, in the Self, in the Supreme. That alone knows no disgust, and that
alone knows no weariness and no disappointment. There only, is to be found
happiness beyond the touch of passion and craving.

He finds
there the Self in oneness with the Supreme, and shares the blessings of the
life which flows from Him, and love.

But let us
follow a man through death, who during life has chiefly sought enjoyment for
the body. When death strikes away the body, he can no longer use it as an
instrument for his enjoyment. Let me tell you exactly how man passes on

to the other
side of death.

We will take
two examples: one of a man who finds all his pleasures in the body, and the
other of a man who is sober and temperate with the body, and finds greater
pleasure in the exercise of the emotions, in the gratification of the
intellect. What will be the state of those two very different men on the other
side of death?

There are two
worlds into which they both pass and through which they must pass, but the
condition of each man in these two worlds will be exceedingly different.

One takes
with him the passions gratified in the body, and passes out of the body. He is
unconscious at first, and is fast asleep and unconscious for a short time after
death. He awakens, and finds himself in what is called Preta
Loka — the world of those who have passed away, sometimes called Kăma Loka, or the world of desire. When he awakens, the
first thing he is conscious of is that his desires, which he has so much
nourished in the body in life, are very much alive, and are asking for their
usual gratifications. If the man is very fond of eating and drinking or of
enjoying women, these desires arise when the soul awakens after death, and
though he then has a body, it is a body which is quite useless so far as
gratification of desire is concerned.

This body is
sometimes called the strong body, and it really imprisons the Jivătman. He is kept therein as a prisoner is kept in jail;
and the prison-house which keeps him prisoner is made of the passions and
appetites which he ever nourished in his physical life, which he was
continually gratifying and so making very vigorous. These passions do not
really belong to your physical body. The physical body is only an instrument
whereby they are gratified. Passions are not in the outer body, but they are in
the inner, which is the body of desires.

It is there
that all passions have their roots and their centres, and they use the physical
body as the instrument of gratification. There are the Karmendriyas,
they are the organs by which all the passions are gratified, the organs by
which the cravings are fed. The physical life is always feeding the senses.

Thus the
senses of such a man are very strong on the other side of death, and imprison
him, so that the Jivatman is very strongly confined.
He craves for the gratifications which he has been enjoying in the physical
world, and the absence of these makes him very unhappy on the other side of
death. For the gratifications that he is desiring belong to this world, and on
the other side of death he cannot have them. Hence he suffers under strong
sense cravings which he is unable to satisfy.

This is the
condition in which a man is on the other side of death, when he has continually
been gratifying his wishes, his passions, and when at last the body, which is
the only means of that gratification, is struck away. He is just as a starving
man tied to a very strong post and a plate of food put in front of him; he
cannot reach it because he is tied. This greedy, craving, unhappy condition, is
the condition into which man passes after death, when he has spent his physical
life in the enjoyment of the senses. The senses remain, but the means of their
gratification have been struck away. So that death takes away the body, but all
the senses remain. If a man realises this — a man who
has a sensible will — he will not allow himself to make the conditions for this
unhappiness on the other side of death. In this life you do not take poison
merely because it is sweet. You would not be silly enough to take it. You would
say: " No, I am not going to take a thing that will give me serious agony
afterwards."

Then why make
passions strong, since they will only torment you when you pass through death?
You must starve them, because you cannot get this gratification.

Over and over
again, speaking to people, I have told them these facts. I do not know them simply
because I have read of them in sacred books, but because I am able to see them,
as I have been taught to do. It is sad to see people thus suffering, and
naturally one feels pity and sorrow that one is not able to do much to relieve
them from the karma that they have manufactured for themselves.

Those who
have yielded to the senses suffer thus on the other side of death because they
have yielded. Some amount of help can be given to those in Preta
Loka by those who are in the body, and the Shrăddha which
you are taught to perform, is one way to help on the other side, to help to
free the man so that he may pass on to Svarga. In the
Shraddha are mantras to be recited, and the use of
these words is this: all sounds set up vibrations in the air, and the vibrations
force the subtle matter to swing backwards and forwards. The vibrations come
against the body, and help the body to become broken into pieces.

Let me tell
you a similar thing in the physical world. If you have a number of soldiers
marching in order, as they take step after step together it causes vibrations,
and if the soldiers are taken over a bridge which is not a very strong one, I
dare say that you know the commander will tell them to fall out of step, and go
over it walking irregularly. Why? Because if they all keep step together
regularly, there is a great danger that the bridge may break into pieces. These
vibrations that are made by keeping step regularly are very strong, and may
break the thing against which they come.

The mantras
set up strong, regular vibrations, which, come against the body that imprisons
the Jivătman, and help to break it. That is why the Shrăddha ceremony is performed and why mantras are recited.
But you should try to be very careful

how it is
done. The priest should be learned, and pure in life, otherwise he has very
little power which he can give to the mantras. The man who is ignorant, who is
illiterate, who is impure, he has very little force which he can throw into the
recitation of the mantras, so that when the Shrăddha
is performed, if there be an ignorant priest, the Shrăddha
is comparatively of little use.

If there be a
learned and pure priest, then you are doing a good and great service to your
friends and your relatives on the other side of death. It will help to set them
free from the prison in which they are living.

Now look at
the man who has not given way to bodily passions during his physical life, and
who passes to Preta Loka or Kăma
Loka. What happens to him?

He has
exhausted his passions by conquering them before death; he has made them weak.
The consequence is this: there is very little material with which to build up
this prison-house. Just as you cannot build a house without bricks and without
earth, so the prison-house on the other side of death cannot be built up, if
you do not give materials of passions with which to build it. The result is
that when the man who has not given way to the passions passes out of the body,
on the other side of death there is a very pure subtle body which can easily be
broken through, and he passes very quickly on to the pure world.

He passes
swiftly through Preta Loka. He is not held there. He
does not suffer there. He has made a body that helps him instead of dragging
him back, and he goes on happily and easily, without any trouble and sorrow,
and finds full consciousness

in Svarga, the land of happiness, in the company of the gods.

Now comes in
the great use of the intellect. The man who has cultivated the intellect and
who has cultivated the finer emotions, and has done a great deal of good to the
people round him, who has been kind, gentle and just, finds all his good deeds
good thoughts and good feelings awaiting him. All these come round him and make
him a beautiful body, in which he enjoys all the happiness of the heavenly
world. All his merits, the good actions good desires, and good thoughts of his
past life, make up his Svarga body, in which he is
able to enjoy all the delights of the heavenly world.

This is the
kind of body you should be building now, in order that on the other side of
death you may find it ready for you to carry you on. You make that body by good
desires, by wishing to do right, by noble aspirations, by trying to do good, by
good thoughts. You don't know how strong thought is; every time you think of a
good thing, you create a beautiful form which remains near you in life, and
helps you to walk along the Path of Right Action. Every day of your life you
should give a little time to good thoughts. When you get up in the morning, after
you have worshipped, then think of good things, think good thoughts. Give a
little time to think of what is pure and holy.

You will thus
build a body which will wait for you on the other side of death, and will take
you to Svarga. You should fix some strong, good
thoughts by daily meditation; then, when the moment of death comes upon you,
those good thoughts

will carry
you to the world to which they belong. It is said in the Bhagavad-Gită by ShriKrshina
that the man after death goes to the world of the thought that he thinks when
he dies. In the heavenly body you live as long as the body that you have made
will last. The more good you have put into it, the longer will be your heavenly
life in the heavenly world. Again, the law gives you just what you have here
built up.

Sages have
always taught that sacrifice wins Svarga. That is
literally true. Let a man sacrifice, and by his sacrifice he will win the joy
of Svarga. Everything that a man gives in sacrifice
comes back to him. A man gives money here for a jewel, gives money for land,
for palaces, for all objects of luxury, and he does not grudge what he gives
for these. These things all give pleasure for some moments, but when the
pleasure is over, it is gone, nothing remains. That man grudges every gift he
gives to God. The Gods ask him to make sacrifices to them: they ask for such
gifts as make life happier for others — the digging of wells, the planting of
trees, the doing of of all things that benefit other
people; and then the Gods, who are just, give him back his gifts in the
heavenly life. If man gives more in sacrifice, his heavenly life will be longer
and happier.

It is the law
that a man must be born where the things are that he desires. It is written in
one of the Upanishads that man by his desires is carried to one world or
another world. Now most of man's desires belong to this world, the material
physical world. Hence he quickly comes back to it. He is born again
comparatively soon.

Three things govern
rebirth — his actions in his previous birth, his desires in his previous birth,
his thoughts in his previous birth. I have told you how these work out in Kama
Loka and Svarga. A part of these has thus been worked
out in these two worlds. The part remaining governs his rebirth.

When he is
reborn, a man's thoughts build up the character with which he is born again
into the world. You know how different characters are at birth. There are two
little children born with two very different characters. One child you will
find very greedy, and the other unselfish. The one child very passionate and
angry, and the other gentle. One child loving and sympathetic, the other cold
and indifferent. They are so different, although but little children. These are
the characters that they made in their past lives.

You know how
much a man's happiness in the world depends on his character. If a man is not
upright, pure and gentle, he may be rich, he may be powerful, he may be noble,
he may be a prince, yet still he will be unhappy.

Now your
character is built by your thoughts; as you think, so shall you become. It is
written in the Chhăndogyopanishad: "Man is
created by thoughts. As a man thinks, so he becomes".

Thought is
not only making you a body for Svarga, but also a
character with which you will be reborn. If you but think nobly, you will be
born with a noble character. If you think badly and basely, you will be born
with a bad and base character. This is the law which cannot be changed.

The next
thing is your desires; by your desires is now being determined what sort of
objects you shall have in your next life. If you desire money very much, you
will get it in your next life; if you desire power very much, you will get it
in your next life. But take care how you choose. It is not always the choice of
wealth and high position that gives happiness.

Let me tell
you the story of a man whose life is strange. The man was very poor. He became
a contractor, and grew enormously rich. Everything that he did succeeded. Every
speculation he

went into was
successful. So that he heaped up rupees until he had lakhs
of rupees, and crores of rupees, gathered together.
He built a magnificent palace to live in, and he furnished it splendidly. But
he does not live there, in spite of having such a magnificent home: he lives in
a house in the village, he is unhappy, very miserable. His children are
careless, his wife dead, all his relatives dislike him. He is a miserable man
in the midst of such enormous wealth. He lives in a poor little cottage with
one servant, suffering from a terrible disease.

What had been
his previous life? He had been a man always longing for money, money; the law
of Karma was just, and gave him wealth. The character he built in the past life
was truly

miserable: he
was very selfish, and always trying to get hold of money, and he did get it,
but did not use it well. The result in this life was that he got money, but was
miserable in the midst of it.

Then, as to
the effect of actions. If in your life you make other people happy in this
world, physically happy, then physical happiness will come to you in your next
birth. If you spread prosperity about you, so that people around you are
prosperous, you will have prosperity in your own life. If you make people happy,
you must make some sacrifice yourself.

Now lot me
suppose a very rich man gives a park to the public. This is a very good action,
for it gives a great deal of physical happiness to the people; they can enjoy
the air, they can sit under the shadow of the trees. This physical happiness
given will return to him as physical welfare; he will reap the physical good he
has done, and the fruit of every benefit that people have received from him.
All this comes back to him.

But if he is
to be morally happy, he must give it from an unselfish motive. He must give it
from an unselfish desire to do good to the people. That unselfishness will come
back to him in character, and will make him a happy man.

A man must
think of character as well as of actions, but he must not forget actions. If a
man acts unjustly to others, injustice will come to him in another life by
Karmic law.

If power is
not rightly used, if it oppresses and causes suffering, then the harsh ruler
will in another life suffer oppression, and reap the fruit of the seed that he
has sown. This is the law ofKarma,
which brings to every man according to his deeds, and according to his power is
the measure of his responsibilities. Ishvara places
men in high positions, and places them there to represent Him in the eyes of
the people. It has always been taught in Hinduism that the prince is as God to
his people, wielding the power of God. He stands there as the divine power, and
is to be served as God, is to be served as Ruler.

In exchange
for that, he must give the people protection, justice; must guard the poor
against the rich, and the weak from the oppression of the strong.

Weakness must
find in him a strong protector, for it is said in the Mahăbhărata
that the tears of the weak and the oppressed destroy the power of the strong.
It is the Divine Law. God is the one King of kings, the only Ruler of earthly
rulers, he calls them to account for the injustice done by carelessness or by
legal enactment, or by arbitrary will. Every power should remember the higher
power to which it is accountable.

Such is the
law of birth and death. Such is the circle through which the soul must pass on
its way. One thing remains to say of this wheel of birth and death from which
nobody escapes. We are not always to tread this round, and not always to be
reborn and not always to die. We grow wearied of it, and wish to escape. When
this time comes, we ask the way to liberation. You remember the story of Nachiketas, who when his father was offering a sacrifice,
asked him to whom he would give

himself. The
father replied: "To Death I will give thee". He went therefore to the
house of Yama, the lord of Death, and stood there for
three days and nights, without receiving hospitality, until Death returned, and
found him waiting, in obedience to his father's promise to give him to Death.
As amends for the lack of welcome, Death gave him three boons.

Then Nachiketas first asked that his father might again be
pleased with him. Another boon was that of the heavenly fire, and Death said
that that fire should be known by him and called by his name. As the third boon
the boy asked for the secret of Death. "Some say man is immortal; others
say he is not; tell me, O Death, thy secret; can man escape thy power? ".
"Do not ask that", said Death. " Not that", said Death
again; "ask any other boon and I will give it thee. I will give thee
earthly wealth and all life's pleasures, but ask not the secret of Death".
" Keep thou the joys of earth, keep thou the joys of heaven, keep thou the
heavenly damsels, the heavenly dance and song. Instead of all these give me the
one boon, the only boon I seek — how may man escape thy mouth? " said the
boy. To such questioning Death was compelled to answer, and he told him how man
might escape from the bands of Death. Man is bound by desires. The desires are
born of the senses.

These carry
him from birth to birth, from death to death. He must overcome the senses. That
is the first step to be taken, the first thing to do. As the senses bind him to
birth and death alike, let him learn to control the senses and bring them under
the domination of the mind. The body is like a chariot, the senses are the
horses, the mind is the reins. Pure reason, the Buddhi, is the driver. The Self
is above the driver and is in the chariot.

The pure, the
Buddhi, must drive the chariot and with the reins of the mind draw in the
senses — the horses galloping after the objects of sense, and carrying the
chariot with them. They must be guided along the right way. Let man control the
mind by the pure reason, reducing it to peace, as he has reduced the senses.

In every
action let him control the senses and govern the mind. When once these steps
are taken, the man will begin to see the Self by the tranquility of the mind.
Then let him give himself to Yoga. Let him meditate on the One, the Eternal,
the Atman within the cavity of the heart. He who dwells in the cave of the
heart, the seeker must fix his mind on him. On that eternal Man, the true Purusha, let him meditate within

the city of
the body.

The mind in
dwelling on the Eternal Atman must be pure, must be fearless, must be steady;
he must learn Guyăna — the true wisdom — and Bhakti — the devotion that feels the unity of the Self.
Thus may a man conquer Death. When all the desires of the heart, are broken,
then the mind becomes immortal. When the mind sees the supreme Soul, it escapes
from the mouth of Death.

That is the
secret told. That is the only secret of liberation that can be told. How shall
we do this? How shall we learn it? There are still Gurus to teach us, and Death
says: " Seek the great Gurus and attend". They are still living and
are still teaching, and are seeking for people who are willing to learn. I
speak to you as I know. They teach the way to the narrow Path that is still
open, the Path which can be sought by the Divine Wisdom, the Ancient Wisdom,
which they still teach to their pupils in the modern world by the great
Theosophical Society. But the pupil must be ready to be a pupil, if the Guru is
to be found.

Then he may
learn the greatest of Truths. But remember that the Self is not to be found by
the sensual or by the weak; man cannot find him by words; he cannot find him by
arguments. The Self reveals himself to him alone whom he chooses, and the
choice of the Self is determined by the purity and unselfishness of the life.